Maria Butina

Maria Butina (10 November 1988-) was a Russian spy who was involved with the illegal funnelling of money to the NRA to help Donald Trump win the presidency of the United States during the 2016 presidential election.

Biography
Maria Butina was born in Barnaul, Altai Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union in 1988, and she was elected to the Public Council of Altai Krai at the age of 19. She built a furniture business in her hometown in Siberia, and she sold six of her seven stores before moving to Moscow in 2011 to start an advertising agency. In 2011, she started working for leading United Russia politician Aleksandr Torshin, and she founded the "Right to Bear Arms" gun rights organization that same year. By 2015, the group had 10,000 members and 76 offices in Russia.

Since 2011, Butina attended annual NRA meetings in the United States, establishing a cooperative relationship between the NRA and Right to Bear Arms. Butina and Torshin became lifetime NRA members, and Butina gained access to high-level contacts in Washington DC through her NRA association and her ties to conservative politics in the USA. During the 2016 presidential election, she assisted in the illegal funnelling of money to the NRA to help Trump win the presidency, and she was arrested on 15 July 2018 on conspiracy charges.